


Growing Pains

by AceQueenKing



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28311222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: Hades thinks Persephone is perfect, except for one thing: she only comes up to his mid-thigh.
Relationships: Hades/Persephone (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 138
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Growing Pains

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lemonsharks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonsharks/gifts).



The first time he saw the girl, he knew Zeus was sending her only as a joke.

“This is Persephone,” Zeus intoned as he answered the message; Persephone, lovely though she was, smiled, tilting her head up toward him. Zeus, conspicuously, disappeared, cutting off communications as soon as he realized Persephone had arrived.

And there she was, smiling up at him from barely his knee.

She was beautiful; that was true.

She was also all of perhaps five feet tall. He knew she had been born of a mortal father, but he had not figured such had affected her so much as this.

“Hello,” she said and held out a hand.

“I am Hades,” he said, stupidly. “Er, Greetings. Well-met. I hope your travel has gone well.”

He closed his hand around her wrist and tried not to notice it was several sizes larger than his own.

He could already hear Zeus’ laughter, even if the man was as far away from him as he could possibly be.

***

Persephone stared at him as they ate dinner together. It was the seventh of such dinners: she had dinned with him every day she was in the underworld thus far. Each had been pleasant enough: she was a quick-witted woman, and more than a little friendly. Each day she had touched his hand, and he was not fool enough to miss that signal.

It stood to reason, anyway, that if Zeus had sold their potential marriage as a joke to him, then perhaps he had done the same silver-tongued hilarity in setting up herself.

“Your portrait does not do you justice,” she said, shifting her fine face onto her arm and smiling at him. “You are quite lovely when you smile.”

He gave he a thin one, the only sort of smile he made, and tried not to notice as she shifted to reach for her wineglass: the goblet of wine fit his hands fine but in hers, it was as large as a fishbowl.

Comical.

He glared at her, irritated by the difference. It was not right. She was comely, and he had gotten his hopes up, and now—now they were kept between them by the problems of sheer physics.

“Have I done something wrong?” She asked, quietly. “You keep glaring at me.”

Stupid.

His brother had already done half the work of ruining a possible relationship, and now he was making a true pig’s ear out of the rest of it.

“I…. apologize. I was thinking of my brother. He’s…irritated me of late.” A truth, if not the entire truth, but how to explain his intentions. _I should like to take a wife. I admired your portraiture, but…Clearly, you are not the size for the job._ There was no way to put that well.

She looked down, then tipped her goblet up, neatly finishing the glass. It was a potent display. He found it quite charming. He took a drink of his own, and felt his own cheeks flush, and knew it was not just the wine.

“I’m sorry he has put such stress on you.” She reached out a dainty hand and laid it upon his own, and he stared down at their conjoined hands, miserable. Her thumb was smaller than his pinky. “It cannot be easy. Especially with the stress of you helping me out as well. And to spend each dinner with me, aside.”

“It is no trouble,” he said; dining with her had been his highest pleasure in years. “I am surprised once you saw the living conditions that you did not wish to return to the hay-bed of your sweet mother, however.”

She made a face that was as charming as he’d ever seen: her sweet wheat-hair breezing past her scrunched up nose. “I do not think, Hades, that such may ever be possible.” He did not know what to say to that, and so he said nothing. She paused. “I was not very happy there, and I…”

“I understand,” he said, half-mumbled into his dinner. “My parents were—much the same.” 

“I had hoped you would.” And the conversation was left there, with things left unsaid, and things unneeded to be said. And he felt sorrow then, for he knew from that moment that he could love her, that she could handle his coldness, his oddness, everything about him but for his…

She stood up from the table, distracting him. She crossed the few feet that stood between them, though it took more strides than it would take him to do so. Then she climbed up, scrambling like a mountain goat, and placed both hands on his face. He froze, like a man who had just seen Artemis un-clothed.

And then she kissed him.

***

He pulled away from her after a moment. Perhaps several moments. For a little bit, he was frozen, unsure of himself, frozen in the act of kissing, of _enjoying_ the kissing of that tiny little mouth. Then she jumped up upon his knee, and he panicked, realizing that he could not take this much farther.

She kissed him again, her tongue seeking entry into his mouth; he fumbled, slowly pushing her away.

“We cannot—” he said, and she looked away. 

“I am sorry. I thought—” Her cheeks were the tender pink of a warm summer’s day—or at least his dim memories of what such might have resembled. “I had thought you were interested. You have been so kind to me. And lord Zeus suggested that perhaps…”

“I am…” He grimaced toward her. “I—” he coughed. “Woman, it is just—my brother sent you as a joke.”

“A joke?” She frowned, tilted her head. “It does not seem a joke to me. I am well aware of what wrath you and I risk.”

“Look at—” He cleared his voice. “Look at yourself, and I. Does such activities between us not seem meant as a comedy?”

“Am I laughing?” She stood to her full height—not that that was particularly much—and stared deep into his eyes. There was certainly a small amount intimidation all the same. 

“No,” he admitted.

“And you do not seem much fond of laughing.” She raised an eyebrow. “I am a fertility goddess,” she said softly. “With all the powers that entail.”

He stared up at her, unsure what such meant. “I can grow,” she said, gently. As if to illustrate the point, she pushed herself upwards, making herself fully capable of looking him in the eye.

“May I kiss you again?” She murmured, her voice husky.

And there was not a power in the world that could stop him from saying yes.


End file.
